bchs16@uhnix2.uh.edu (Jack Chappelear) (10/27/88)
The University of Houston Department of Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences
and University Computing Center announce the availability of a
GENBANK-SERVER
This is a mail response facility which will return a specific GenBank
entry requested via e-mail. The request must specify one, and only one,
locus name (from the LOCUS line) from the GenBank sequence database.
The server can be accessed on the Internet and UUCP *only* at this time.
Future connection through BITNET is possible.
Please be aware that a mail response program is not "smart" and can
only respond to a limited set of commands. The full indexing of GenBank
(author, accession number, journal citation) are NOT available.
The address to use is
genbank-server@uhnix2.uh.edu (Internet)
or
...uhnix2!genbank-server (Usenet)
and your request can consist of one of the following:
HELP
SEND LOCUS genbank_locus_name_
SEND INDEX
SEND HELP (this may also work)
"HELP" will result in a small help file being sent back.
SEND LOCUS genbank_locus_name will return via e-mail the requested locus
if it exists, and an error message if it does not. Index files are
available; ask for the master index via SEND INDEX and there will be more
information sent back.
Server Policies:
The server runs every half hour and will handle only *one* request at a
time. If you want more than one entry, send in separate requests.
Large GenBank entries (Lambda, EBV, tobacco and liverwort chloroplasts)
may not make it through the thread of mailers. UUCP mailers, in
particular, silently enforce a limit of 64,000 characters in a single
mail message. Note also that Usenet mail is very unreliable; you should
consult the "pathalias" database to construct a mail path from
your machine to uhnix2. A local Unix mail wizard may be able to help.
In the near future we will add access by accession number. It is
highly recommended that you get the help file, which explains the
version of GenBank being distributed and the update policy.
The server contains a simple response to someone asking for too many
loci or otherwise abusing the service: it stops working for them.
Please restrict your requests to no more than one or two a day; if
the demand is too great the service will randomly choose requests
to ignore, or will be stopped altogether.
Questions can be sent to dd@lanl.gov (Internet) or dd%lanl.gov@CUNYVM(BITNET).
Requests to talk to a human rather than a mail response program should
be sent to archive-managment@uhnix2.uh.edu.bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (11/01/88)
In article <692@uhnix2.uh.edu> bchs16@uhnix2.uh.edu (Jack Chappelear) writes:
: The University of Houston Department of Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences
: and University Computing Center announce the availability of a
: GENBANK-SERVER
:
: [and goes on to describe this *fascinating* server.]
I am very glad to see that things other than software will get posted
here.
Two questions come to mind after reading the posting:
1) Is it desirable to have long descriptive postings about various
archive sites? Such postings should not duplicate the
information available in the other databases, but would provide
general information about what the site is up to,
administrivia, and whatever else the site manager sees fit.
2) The site provides an index, available from them. Should I rely
on the presence of this index and the general information
provided by the archive site, and not post any content
information other than for the index? Should I request that
index and post it? If so, how often should I ask for updates?
Or should I leave it up to the archive manager to send me the
index?
Comments?
---
Bill
{uunet|novavax}!proxftl!twwells!bill